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In some ways, Barzakh feels very much like an extension of director Asim Abbasi’s 2018 Cake, a Karachi-set family drama in which two sisters come together after an emergency, to unpack the layers that have kept them apart for so long.
The new six-episode series, Episode 1 is out now on Zee5 and Zee Zindagi’s YouTube channel, followed by new episodes every Tuesday & Friday, also deals with a broken family, old resentments, and buried secrets, but the two couldn’t be more different when it comes to the tone and tenor: Barzakh, set for the most part in stunning mountainous locales, moves in an out of realms of myth and reality, segueing between past and present, leading us to wonder about this world and other worlds, mediated by thin membranes of perception and desire.
If you are one of those who has been breathlessly waiting for the ‘re-union’ of Fawad Khan and Sanam Saeed after their constant entanglements in the long-running, madly popular TV show Zindagi Gulzar Hai, woohoo, here they are again, at the centre of a plot which picks up its roots from Abbasi’s own cerebral and emotional engagement with the bigger themes of life and death even as he gives us spiky, troubled individuals to get involved with.
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Seventy-six year old Jafar Khanzada (Salman Shahid) who lives in the Land Of Nowhere (yes, that’s how it’s described) presides over his resort in the company of the lovely Scheherazade (Sanam Saeed), a lost daughter whose origins are unclear. The truculent, strong-willed JK who refuses to admit to creeping dementia, is about to break his self-imposed isolation as he has whistled up his estranged sons Shehryar (Fawad Khan) and Saifullah (Fawad M Khan) to witness his ‘third and final’ betrothal to his one true love, a woman no one has met or seen. Does she even exist, or is she a figment of his dying brain?
The whole thing is ripe for the kind of drama that Abbasi is aiming for, in which human vulnerabilities are accentuated by mystical elements. What I really liked is that he doesn’t get into explanatory mode, even as we are surrounded by creatures — wearing pink robes, carrying heavy stones — who are clearly not of this world, and old wives tales which carry a strong sting. What threw me off, somewhat, is the insistence of characters speaking in a deliberate, slowed-down tone, when the pace turns a trifle leaden, and the other-worldly goings-on threaten to turn precious rather than profound.
Mercifully, the strong story-telling and performances, and the breath-taking scenery (the production design is outstanding) more than make up for those bits. Fawad Khan, whose heart-throb quotient hasn’t dropped an inch for his fans in India, is every bit as dishy as he has been; Sanam Saeed is as gorgeous. There are some wonderful child actors here, especially the nine-year old Haaris (Syed Arham); Abbasi’s refusal to infantilize them makes them people we can take seriously. Fawad M Khan’s older sibling Saifu is terrific, too, as is the handsome Italian chef played by Franco Giusti, who adds succulence in his dishes and his demeanour. Salman Shahid’s patriarch towers over all else: even his unravelling has power.
You have to submit to the world-building of Barzakh, produced by Shailja Kejriwal and Waqas Hassan, to fully appreciate its wares, and you may fall out of it in bits, but this is a series which will stay with me, and make me think of the things it shows, and even more of the things it doesn’t.
Barzakh cast: Fawad Khan, Sanam Saeed, Salman Shahid, Fawad M Khan, Franco Giusti, Syed Arham
Barzakh director: Asim Abbasi
Barzakh rating: 3.5 stars
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